


A Half-Remembered Song

by Avourellion



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Drabbles, F/M, Gen, M/M, No promises as to what's in here, Not Beta Read, Shorts, Unfinished works that will never get finished, probably some smut so here's your warning for that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:01:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avourellion/pseuds/Avourellion
Summary: AKA, I never seem to manage to finish writing anything more than a few hundred word drabbles, so this will be a dumping ground for all of my unfinished stories. I'm posting them here as I'll likely never get around to expanding them into their own full length fics, but I still want to share them. These will also be posted in tumblr eventually.
Relationships: Dario Santiago/Khalila Seif, Jess Brightwell/Morgan Hault, Niccolo Santi/Christopher Wolfe
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christopher's first time being in an actual fight outside of stuff on the Garda training grounds. Some small battle of some sort, versus armed, non-Library soldiers. Nic's been trained and has been in stuff like this before so he handles it a bit better.

Christopher slammed his elbow up into the man's face. His nose broke instantly, showering both of them in blood. The soldier jerked off of him with a shout of pain. It allowed Chris to roll free, wiping blood out of face.

He snatched up the pistol from the floor and came up into a crouch, the gun trained at the soldier's chest. Now, shoot him, before he recovers. His hands shook, damn them, and his fingers curled around the trigger. Pull it, do it. And he tried, but he couldn't, why couldn't he do it?

_It's no small thing to take the life of another man. It's something you can't shake._

But it was Chris or the man, and one of them was going to kill the other.

The man had recovered and turned back to Chris, barreling toward him. Chris fell onto his back, the gun still pointed upward. The soldier was on top of him again. Blood dripped from his crooked nose down onto Christopher's face. 

The soldier pressed his forearm against Chris's throat, and after a moment he began gasping, trying to suck in air, but it was blocked off.

The gun was pressed against the man's chest, but they both knew he wasn't able to shoot.

_Pull the damn trigger, Christopher, shoot him._

_But I can't!_ he wanted to scream back at himself. _I thought I could but here we are and I can't kill him, I can't kill someone, I can't bring myself to do it. I can't, I can't, I can't._

Dark spots began dancing at the edges of his vision, and he shoved against the soldier with all of his failing strength. He struggled to stay awake; as soon as he fell unconscious it was over.

He was taller than the man, but he's always been thin and awkward and not the most physically powerful of people. He'd need to start drilling with the Garda, like some of the other Research Scholars did, when he got home. _If_ he got home. 

_Is now really the time for this?_ part of him wondered, trying to twist away. His lungs burned and his vision was flickering. 

_Shoot him, kill him, save yourself._

_I can't!_

And then an earsplitting gunshot rang throughout the room and the man on top of him collapsed into heavy, limp weight. 

Dead.

He tried to shove the corpse away, but all he could do was feel horror and disgust and shock. This thing on him, the body that had just seconds ago been so full of strength and life, gone in an instant. 

Then the weight was hauled off of him. Chris rolled over, shoved himself to his hands and knees, and promptly threw up. He wasn't sure why - something about the horrible suddenness of it all had triggered a deep and horrified reaction within him, maybe. 

Whoever had shot the soldier grabbed his shoulders and pulled him up, slapping at his chest and torso none too gently. 

Nic, of course. He'd recognize those hands anywhere. 

"Not... hurt," Chris rasped out. It hurt like all hell to force words out through his damaged throat. He looked down at himself. His body and his hands seemed strangely disconnected, as though they belonged to a stranger. He was soaked in the blood and gore of the dead soldier. 

"His blood." 

And then finally came the tears. It wasn't a pretty affair. Ugly, deep sobs shook his entire body, messy tears were streaking down his face, and his nose was running. Nic just held him in his arms, rocking gently, and let him cry.

Christopher wasn't sure how long it was until he recovered. Nic spoke to him in a low tone, probably talking about the bruises already forming across his neck, but he didn't hear any of it. 

_I wonder what his name was. Who was he? Where did he come from? Who will mourn him now that he is dead?_

_He didn't deserve to have been killed like that, even if he was trying to kill me._

_I couldn't shoot him. I couldn't do it._

He didn't deserve to die.

And now he was dead, his corpse lying in the corner of the room, shoved to the side.

He must've had a family. A wife, children maybe. He has a ring. _How is it fair for him to have been taken away from them so that I might live instead?_

Christopher grasped Nic's arm. He couldn't talk with his throat in the condition it was (and privately he doubted he'd be able to talk with his throat uninjured), so he tapped out the words in the code the Garda used to relay messages. 

_Can you find out who he was?_

"I'm not sure. I can try."

_I want to find his family._

"Chris, we take care of our own men. It's hard and painful enough to have to write to their families. But him? He's an enemy. He was going to kill you."

Chris tightened his grip, digging his fingers into Nic's arm until he winced. 

_I. Don't. Care. Find them._

He tried to channel everything he felt into the tapped words. His anger, his shock, the hopelessness of the situation. The painful finality of it all.

 _He wasn't a bad person._ He tried to be gentler with this series of taps. _He's a soldier just like us. He was doing his duty, what he believed in._

"I would have liked to have known him," Nic said at last. "To learn why he fought, to know what was going through his mind in those final moments."

 _Does it ever get any easier?_ he tapped out.

"No, amore mio." Nic pressed his lips to the top of Chris's head. "No, it never will."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus points if you caught the reference to another musical XD


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Rome, just graduated & earned gold bands both. Nic 18/19, Chris 17/18. 
> 
> Full disclaimer, my thing is archery, NOT guns. I've shot before, yes, but it's been a few years and I never really got formal instruction, basically just 'you stand like this, hold it like this, shoot it like this' so yeah... here's what I remember. While I like Stormcrow I always imagined they were postulants together, so that wasn't how they met. The events of Stormcrow may well have happened, I'd just say they already knew each other. I've just gotten their ages from it though, Christopher is younger by a year to a year and a half, maybe even a bit more, because he was placed in a postulant class before he turned 16 like the others.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, this was something I was supposed to turn into a full fic. So much for that.
> 
> Apologies for any bad grammar and typos, I didn't spend much time going through this before I posted it, so please point my mistakes out so I can fix them.

Nic tapped Chris's heel with his own boot, nudging the new Scholar's feet farther apart. "Widen your stance a bit. You want to be loose and balanced."

Without warning, he reached out and shoved Chris, hard.

Christopher rolled with it, only stumbling forward a step rather than falling flat on his face. "A little warning next time?"

"You wish. But you're getting better," Nic said. "You want to be able to absorb the momentum, rather than letting it move you."

He spent a few more minutes correcting Christopher's stance before drawing one of the pistols from his belt. 

"Did Faliq ever get around to teaching you some of the finer points of shooting?" he asked, holding the gun out to Chris.

"No, but it's simple enough. Point it at the person whose brains you want to blow out and pull the trigger."

Nic snorted. "That would be the theory, yes," he said, placing the gun in Chris's hand. "But it's a good bit different from that."

Christopher shrugged. He brought the gun up, keeping his arms level, and aimed before firing off three shots in quick succession.

Each of them struck the heavy target on the other end of the practice range, but they were by no means highly accurate. 

Nic raised a hand to block the bright Alexandrian sun. "Not too bad."

"What does it take to get a compliment out of you?"

"Shut up," Nic snapped, but there was no real heat behind the jab.

He came up behind Chris and wrapped his arms around him, holding Christopher's hands - and the gun - in his own.

"Hold it more like this," he said, nudging Chris's fingers with his own. "If your fingers are in the wrong place, you'll jam them with the recoil on some models."

Chris leaned back into him. "If this was a ploy to get me into your arms, you should have just asked."

Nic planted a quick kiss on the back of Chris's neck. "Later? Now pay attention. I'm trying to teach you something."

"Of course, Nic."

Nic wasn't entirely sure what to call their relationship. They were both comfortable in it, they knew exactly where they stood with each other, yes, but he couldn't stick a label on it however hard he tried.

Lovers seemed to formal and official of a term. He wasn't even twenty yet himself, and Chris was even younger, but it certainly wasn't a quick teenage romance.

**Author's Note:**

> Come say hi on tumblr @orestes-hungry-and-pylades-sober. Feel free to drop a story or prompt request for any of my fandoms.


End file.
